3 Best BlueHost Alternatives

BlueHost is one of the most popular web hosting companies out there. In the highly competitive web hosting field, BlueHost has been holding its own with the best of them for many years. At the moment it is hard to find a web owner who is not at least aware of the BlueHost brand.

The company has several VPS Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting plans on offer. BlueHost even offers WordPress Optimized Hosting Services. Truly a company that covers most of the bases, as far as web hosting services go.

The entry level shared hosting plan is called ‘Starter’. The plan is on sale for just $4.95 per month for the first month and $5.99 per month for succeeding periods. Included in this starter plan are: 100 GB of website space, 1 domain, 5 parked domains, 25 sub domains, unlimited bandwidth, $50 worth of marketing offers, and 100 email accounts with each account equipped with 500MB of storage. People requiring more storage space, bandwidth and special services may opt for the Plus Plan for $6.95 per month for the first month and $9.99 per month thereafter or the even more power-packed Business Pro Plan for $14.95 per month for the first month and $19.99 per month thereafter.

BlueHost offers VPS Hosting Plans in four different levels, which are: Standard, Enhanced, Premium and Ultimate. The Starter Plan boasts of 2GB Available RAM, Two CPU Cores, 30GB SAN Storage, 1 IP 1TB Bandwidth, , and free domain. Best of all it is on special offer for only $14.99 for the first month and renews at $29.99 per month thereafter. There are increasingly more feature-packed plans which are; the Enhanced Plan for just $29.99 for the first month and $59.99 per month thereafter, the Premium Plan for just $44.99 for the first month and $89.99 per month thereafter, and the Ultimate Plan for just $59.99 for the first month and $119.99 per month thereafter.

BlueHost also offers its Dedicated Hosting Plans in just three levels: Standard, Enhanced and Premium. The Standard Plan is offered for only 74.99 for the first month and $149.99 per month thereafter, the Enhanced Plan for only 99.99 for the first month and $199.99 per month thereafter, and the top of the line Premium Plan comes with a price of 124.99 for the first month and $249.99 per month thereafter. All of these plans feature extreme speed, complete root access to CentOS, instant provisioning, on-the-fly storage upgrades, RAID storage, and other speed enhancement, security, spam protection and other capabilities. The Standard Plan is no slouch either, as it already comes with 2 x 2.3 GHz 4 x 2.5 GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM, 1TB of mirrored storage, 5TB of Bandwidth, 3 IPs, and free domain.

Those who want to engage in a worry-free web hosting business of their own need look no farther than Bluehost. The Sky Blue, Electric Blue and True Blue Reseller Hosting Plans are fully-managed by BlueHost and entry level costs only $19.95 per month. For that amount the Sky Blue plan already provides 15 Mbps Transfer Speed, Unlimited Accounts, 100 GB of Disk Space, and free domain.
BlueHost has an Optimized Hosting Service for WordPress, which is offered for just $12.49 per month for the first month and $24.99 per month thereafter. The plan helps make WordPress sites faster, more secure, and a lot simpler to use.

But even with all its feature-packed plans, you’ll find that there are web hosting companies out there who are capable of giving BlueHost a run for their money. Many web hosting companies have managed to remain competitive both in price and in the range and quality of services they have on offer. Some of the better alternatives to BlueHost are:

In the heated competition among web hosting service providers HostGator (www.HostGator.com) remains one of the leaders. The web has made it easy for consumers to compare price, services, bundles, guarantees and special offers even from the comfort of their homes; but there is no worry as HostGator remains one of the top in terms of affordable pricing and range of high quality service.
HostGator’s entry-level Hatchling Plan for shared hosting services are offered at a very affordable rate of just $3.96 a month for the first invoice. That price already includes a shared SSL, unlimited bandwidth and disk space. Each shared hosting plan also comes with free site builder software & templates, application hosting, email, and a lot of other useful features. Those with bigger shared hosting plan requirements may choose the Baby and the top-of-the-line Business Shared Hosting Plans.

Those who need more customization and better web security would appreciate the five levels of VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting services HostGator offers; the Snappy 500, Snappy 1000, Snappy 2000, Snappy 4000 and Snappy 8000 VPS plans. The five plans provide increasing levels of CPU power, disk space, bandwidth, and RAM capacities to choose from. Plans start at a $15.96 for the first month, with renewals at $19.95 per month for the Snappy 500 Plan.

If you are interested in opening your own web hosting company but doubt your ability to handle the technical aspects, there is no need to worry; HostGator offers fully managed Reseller Hosting Plans. You can concentrate in reselling and leave the technical aspects to HostGator. Reseller hosting is offered in Aluminum, Copper, Silver, Gold and Diamond plans. Each reseller plan comes with unlimited domains, sub-domains, Email accounts, MySQL databases, FTP accounts, free client management software, site builder software and a lot more – the backing of many of HostGator’s technical support team just makes it easier.

For really huge bandwidth and disc space requirements plus a more a secure environment, there are eight (8) Dedicated Hosting Plans to choose from. Basic, Standard, Elite and Pro Plans are available for both Linux based servers, and Windows based servers. The Aluminum plan for Linux Servers cost just $19.96* for the first month and $24.95 per month thereafter. It already includes 50 GB of disc space and 500 GB of bandwidth. Windows Server based plans cost slightly higher.
HostGator also offers Domain Registration Services.

JustHost offers three types of web hosting services: Shared Web Hosting, VPS Web Hosting, and Reseller Web Hosting. The greatest attraction of JustHost is their very aggressive pricing, which make them more affordable than most.

There is just one level of shared hosting services which JustHost offers for a mere $2.75 per month. The deceptively low price hides powerful features such as unlimited websites, unlimited disc storage, unlimited email accounts, free domain name, free domain name registration for one year, free drag and drop site builder, and a lot of other features designed to improve security, speed, and ease of use.

JustHost built is VPS Hosting on cloud technology. VPS Hosting is offered in Standard, Enhanced, Premium and Ultimate Plans. The entry-level VPS Hosting service is the Standard plan which costs just $14.99 for the first month and $29.99 per month thereafter. That is enough to buy you a single core processor, 2GB of RAM, 30 GB of storage, 1TB of bandwidth per month, free domain name and IP. There are many other features which are too many to enumerate.

The Silver Reseller Hosting Plan costs only $19.95 per month. It is loaded with 100GB of disc space, 15Mbps transfer speed, unlimited accounts, and many other features. There are Gold and Platinum plans available which offer increased disc space and faster transfer speeds.

One can truly say that as a web hosting company, DreamHost is one of the giants. Many of their plans fulfill the most common wishes of their clients: high reliability, reasonable prices, high performance, and a wide range of services available. This company offers Shared Hosting, Managed WordPress Hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), and Dedicated Hosting Services. In addition the company also offers a range of Cloud-Based Services and a Domain Registration Service. DreamHost apparently has almost everything a person seeking web hosting and cloud-based services will ever look for.

Their Shared Hosting Service is offered at only one package bundle, which is priced at $8.95 a month. This is not surprising, because the shared hosting package is already loaded with so many features that there is no need for another. It already comes with unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email accounts, unlimited domain hosting, unlimited 24/7 tech support, 1-click WordPress installer, and an unbeatable 100% uptime guarantee.

The WordPress Hosting on offer is fully managed by DreamHost leaving the subscriber lots more time to spend on his core business activities. Your $19.95 per month buys you a WordPress optimized web hosting service complete with automatic WordPress installation, automatic WordPress updates, the freedom to use any third party theme or plugin, automated daily back-ups, unlimited storage and bandwidth, and 24/7 tech support.

Virtual Private Servers are offered in three package bundles: Super Deal with 300MB of RAM for just $15 per month, Best Value with 1000MBof RAM for $50 per month, and the Monster with 4,000MB of RAM for $200 per month. All packages have unlimited storage and bandwidth, unlimited domain hosting, root SSH access, MySQL-Optimized Virtual Machines, web-based control panel, 24/7 tech support and 100% uptime guarantee. And if you are not sure which package fits, you can start on the entry level Super Deal and upgrade as necessary.

For businesses requiring high amounts of storage, bandwidth and security DreamHost’s Dedicated Server Hosting Services may be the answer. These are offered in three packages: the Blue Moon 4 with 4GB of RAM for $169 per month, the Blue Moon 8 with 8GB of RAM for $209 per month, and Blue Moon 16 with 16GB of RAM for $249 per month. All of these plans are bundled with up to 1 TB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited 24/7 tech support, automatic managed back-ups, RAID storage, Server-Grade CPU’s, full root access and 100% uptime guarantee.
DreamHost also offers Domain Name Registration Services with a unique Domain Privacy Protection included in the package.

In addition to all these, there are cloud-based services available: DreamObjects Cloud Storage Services for 2.5¢/GB per month plus 5¢/GB per month for downloads; DreamSpeed CDN is a content distribution network service with download rates of just 12¢/GB for US and Europe, and 19¢/GB for Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand; plus an up and coming service called DreamCompute, which is really a cloud-computing service.

There are some very good alternatives to BlueHost out there, with three of the most competitive outlined above. But truth be told, with its range of service and award-winning performance, DreamHost appears to be more than just an alternative to BlueHost; it is more of an aggressive competitor. If you are looking for a web host provider, it is hard to find web hosting companies better than the four we have listed here.